The facials aren't done yet, I am still into them, but I would like a generic comment as to how I am proceeding.

Thanks for your time in advance.

rustymclellan

03-14-2006, 09:19 AM

hey there,

Just some advice from what I've seen from some of the other great reels on this website:

1: Show good deformation. This is key, especially if your character is more realistic.
2: If you're going to show a rig off in a reel, make sure you can show solutions that can't be found every where else (internet.. recent books, etc).
3: Show some character animation. If you're rig doesn't look correct when its being animated, then there is no point in showing off just the rig.
4: Various types of scripting can be a great addition to your reel.
5: Not sure how you plan to composite your reel, but having a general theme, and an overall focus to your reel is key. If you're doing defs, do defs. More cartoony, show toon rigs. Mixing and matching is ok to an extent, but showing off specific talents can really showcase your reel.
6: Keep it short, around 2:00 of your best work will be fine.

Good luck with your reel, I hope it comes together for ya.

Rusty

darkjedi1929

03-19-2006, 02:59 PM

Thanks Rusty I really appreciate your advice.

Yeah I am a first timer at this, though I am right now working on my third job (believe it: I got 3 jobs without showing of anything more than a student reel heh). So this reel is actually more of a WIP reel. I am currently workin on a better version of the rig.

Hezza

03-20-2006, 12:31 PM

Hey Dark Jedi,

Nice rig by the looks of it, my points would be along the same line as rustymclellan, keep it short and impressive with some animation to show off the rig. (From other rigging/modelling reels i've seen on these forums) 5mins drags out abit for a demonstration of one rig. Apart from that tho its pretty sweet.

I'm curious as to how you setup your IK/FK arm as it definately seems one of the better implementations i've seen. The only thing i'd be worried about is how it works during animation? from keying the wrist IK control and then putting keys on the shoulder and elbow as FK joints, then keying the IK afterwards etc. Does it all work out smoothly? Also the clavicle control you setup, i take it the True/False attribute is controlling a parent constraing for the rest of the arm, so it follows it along or not?

I'm pretty new to rigging myself so am always looking for different methods. Keep up the good work and best of luck with the reel :)

Hez

darkjedi1929

03-20-2006, 03:42 PM

Hey hezza,

thanks for the words of encouragement man...:thumbsup:
basically its this:

you have 1 arm chain with 3 controllers: shoulder, elbow, wrist. The IK handle is parented to the wrist, the wrist to the elbow, the elbow to the shoulder.

Now when you rotate the shoulder, you (technically) have IK control, but are doing it via FK means......therefore no need to blend between IK/FK and no extra joint setups. The catch is:

1) If you drag away the wrist control, the elbow and the shoulder stay put.
2) I haven't really tried contraining the wrist to an external object, i.e., the rig hangs on to a pole or something. I don't really know how it will fare then.

The first one has a simple solution. Create a scriptjob with a unique ID, say your birthday (ddmmyyyy). Whatever. Now, you want to run that scriptjob everytime the wrist control changes position, so that you can call on a proc which canges the rotations of the FK controls to match the position of the IK controls. Wow. I hope that made sense. Anyway, once that is done, just set the translations of the wrist back to 0 0 0.

But you DONOT want that scriptjob to run when you are playing back the animation. Does screwy stuff. So, just create another script or scriptjob which kills this one whenever the playback state is true. Whenever its false, recreate the scriptjob.

Hope that helped

darkjedi1929

03-20-2006, 03:46 PM

As far as keying goes, I would script it so that only the FK rots are keyed, so no arguing with any FK IK thingy....Yeah, the True/Flase thing is a parent constraint. Dont worry, the arm follows along fine.

If you can test this out and tell me how it works, I'll be real glad mate.

Hezza

03-20-2006, 05:09 PM

Well its definately given me something to think about and experiment with. I've been reading the 'Perfect Arm Setup' thread and it seems there's lots of different opinions about which is best.

I'm still looking for my first job in 3D and not being much of an animator i don't know which would be easiest/best to use. I'm sure it'll all come to me with time an experience :)

Thanks for the response
Hez

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